Police officer turned pastor shares experiences in book

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT), Brian Saxton THE NEWS-TIMES

Published 1:00 am, Sunday, February 5, 2006

NEW FAIRFIELD - It was tempting.

Charles Ferrara
, then a young investigator with the
Organized Crime Control Bureau
14th Narcotics Division in Brooklyn, N.Y., was alone in the back bedroom of an apartment staring at tens of thousands of unmarked dollar bills.
They were packaged in fives, 10s and 20s and were the fruits of a major drug operation Ferrara's team had just smashed in the notoriously tough section of Bedford Stuyvesant.
It took two blows with a steel battering ram to break down the well-fortified door, but once inside, police discovered all the paraphernalia needed to cut, weigh, package and sell heroin.
Ferrara, now a United Methodist pastor in New Fairfield, said the money was "just sitting there" waiting to be picked up by a courier.
"For a split second, thoughts of a new car, a special vacation and paying off the mortgage all entered my mind," said Ferrara.
Instead, he called in another officer to make sure there was a second witness to the cache.
"Had I taken a single dollar bill, it would have affected my life, my future decisions and eventually my reputation and career," said Ferrara.
Ferrara would later use that experience when he became a police chaplain to help other officers resist professional temptation and cope with the moral dangers of a job he calls "a culture within a culture."
His book, "Beyond the Badge, A Spiritual Survival Guide for Cops and Their Families," addresses how almost every human weakness from adultery to anger, violence to drug addiction, can creep into a police officer's life. Often quoting Scripture, Ferrara offers spiritual guidance and solutions.
"Most officers lose their jobs due to inappropriate behavior while drinking alcohol or getting involved in an improper relationship or for accepting a bribe," Ferrara writes. "No matter how tactically astute and brave a police officer may be, each and every one of us is vulnerable to make bad choices concerning ethics and morality."
Ferrara spent 16 years in the harsh, rough and tumble life of the NYPD before retiring and becoming ordained as a United Methodist pastor.
For 15 years, he worked as a police chaplain in Florida, Long Island, N.Y., and Connecticut.
Today, Ferrara, 56, is pastor at the

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in New Fairfield and is chaplain to the
Bethel Police Department
.
"The ministry is similar to police work in a roundabout way," Ferrara said in an interview last week. "We both help people. I was exposed to so many things as a police officer that when I entered the ministry I was better prepared to assist other officers with their problems because I understood them."
Ferrara's book recalls one moment when he had his own brush with death and an incident that typified the daily life of a New York City precinct.
It was 2 a.m. and Ferrara was on patrol near the Midtown Tunnel in New York City. As he grabbed a man waving a gun, the gun went off. The barrel was so close to Ferrara's head, the bullet left powder burns on his cheek.
Ferrara said it was only one of several critical incidents on the job that eventually caused him to develop post-traumatic stress disorder, an occupational hazard in law enforcement that now sometimes becomes part of his counseling.
Another time, Ferrara and his unit, with guns drawn, responded to an apartment shooting. One woman had been shot in the head and was face down halfway into the bathroom on a blood-soaked carpet.
Ferrara writes about lifting her head only to find that her brains were starting to spill out.
Ferrara's life shifted gear during his last year as a lieutenant with the NYPD when he found himself being drawn to the ministry. By 1988, two years after retiring and graduating from
Drew University
in Madison, N.J., Ferrara was ordained a United Methodist pastor.
Chief
Garry Wilson
, a deputy sheriff in St. Lucie County, Fla., lauded Ferrara's work while he was chaplain there.
"Dr. Ferrara has a keen insight into the lives of police officers through his years of being on the job," said Wilson. "This is evident in his work with law enforcement as a pastor and a police chaplain...this insight helped me when I needed it the most."
In his role as a police chaplain, Ferrara's challenges have encompassed both the private and professional problems of police officers.
Ferrara writes of once counseling a man named "Tony," a 29-year-old police officer on Long Island, who was married with two daughters. "Tony" began cheating on his wife after becoming infatuated with a club stripper in Manhattan who had been involved in a case he was handling.
With the stripper pushing him for a divorce, "Tony" became so confused, his job and his health began to suffer.
"Divorce rates among police are twice as high as in other occupations," writes Ferrara. "It is my prayer that if you are reading this book and considering a divorce, you will reconsider and try to work things out."
Ferrara has also counseled on suicide. Ferrara claims that more law enforcement officers take their own lives than are killed by armed attackers or duty-related accidents.
Ferrara writes of the day when an undercover officer argued with his wife and suddenly pulled out his weapon and blew out his brains in front of her.
"When I am counseling a depressed officer as a chaplain, I do not hesitate to ask that officer whether he's thinking of taking his own life," said Ferrara. "Chaplains are an underutilized resource that can make a healthy difference in the life of a police agency."
Bethel Police Chief
Jeffrey Finch
said although the department offers professional employee assistance, police officers often turn instead to a priest or a chaplain.
"This can be a very stressful occupation, and we deal with people at probably the worst time in their life," said Finch. "A chaplain can make a world of difference. Officers trust his confidentiality."
Ferrara, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., is married with two grown daughters. He moved to New Fairfield six years ago.
Ferrara said he wrote his book because he felt challenged.
"I don't know of any other book like this," Ferrara said. "I worked with police officers for so many years. I wanted to write something that would serve as a practical guide to help them work through their difficult job and still find joy and hope in their lives."